There is no possible path for advancement that doesn't threaten people and the things they hold dear. It never worked that way in the past, and it won't now.
Yes, but there's a critical difference now. Now, the tech industry breaks many things at an unprecedented pace, and largely doesn't offer a reasonable replacement for the things that have been broken.
People can only handle a limited amount of loss within a given period of time before they start pushing back hard against further loss and consider those causing them harm to be forces of evil.
There's also another factor that the tech industry is largely blind to: tech people tend to think that "we know best" and that pushing our ideas on the general public against their will is a Good Thing. But it's not a Good Thing, it's a Bad Thing.
Another thing we need to be doing is allying with the general public rather than dictating to them.
Who is pushing anything on the public? The tech industry wouldn't exist in the form that it does now except that it gives people something they want, not the other way around.
Disruption from tech advancement is caused by tech changes displacing existing industries and it hurts the people currently making money from those industries. But to be against that disruption you would have to believe that those people have some sort of right to make that money and continue doing the things that make them those profits when the public wants the more efficient tech. So really it's the anti tech people who are pushing things on the public.
E.g. people often complain about Amazon displacing small retailers, but really it's just that given the choice, most people choose Amazon.
> except that it gives people something they want, not the other way around.
That used to be true. Now, though, a very common thing I've noticed with people is that they use tech not because they want to or because it solves a problem for them, but because they are disadvantaged if they don't.
It's an important difference. If people willingly choose to use a thing, then they'll be inclined to think about it positively. If they use a thing because they feel they have no choice, then that thing is more likely to be viewed as adversarial, because it is.
I think that's largely where the tech industry has arrived at. Further, the tech industry shows little to no empathy to those whose lives are worse because of what it does.
People may feel that way, and I'm sure in some cases they really mean it. But the reason they always give for why they have to use it is some form of "because every one else does." And it had to get to that point because people wanted it in the first place. Otherwise it just wouldn't have sold in the market when it came out.
The costs of a thing are usually not apparent when it is new. All that's apparent is the benefits. The costs rear their ugly head later.
So yes, often people jump onto a hot new thing because all they can see are the benefits. The "buyer's remorse" doesn't come in until later, when the downsides become apparent. At that point, it's often too late and people are trapped. By design.
The tech industry counts on this effect, and doing that is one of the bad behaviors that encourages people to distrust the industry and become angry at it.
All I'm saying is that people are growing increasingly distrustful of, and angry at, our industry for really solid, rational reasons.
The most charitable interpretation I can think of for why we allow this to be is that the most visible part of our industry has become so insular and divorced from society in general that they can't even understand the anger or why it's rational. The least charitable interpretation I can think of is that they know perfectly well why people are getting mad and just don't care, because not caring increases short to medium term profitability.
You're very close to describing the "enshittification" process.
Things start out good quality, high effort. Useful.
Then once they achieve a certain amount of inertia they start cutting stuff out. Adding new tiers of payment plans, or injecting advertising into existing plans. Lowering caps. Whatever else they can get away with to cut costs but keep your money.
But people have invested in them by that point. Invested enough that changing off is painful and potentially expensive. They want to barrier to leave to be high, even as they give you less reason to stay using their product.
Not sure you even need this product cycle to explain the parent poster's observation.
What I see here is your basic Tragedy of the Commons at multiple levels. Consumers adopt the new thing to disadvantage their peers, who then have to do the same, to the detriment of all. And the vendors are doing the same thing.
This whole thread reminds me how much "tech" as a meme has come to conflate technology and business. People don't even seem to recognize that "move fast and break things" expressed a business philosophy, not some fundamental truth of technology, R&D, or science.
You're ignoring the fact that "it" (the tech in question) can change, and that there's a large motivation to monetize/cut dev spending/etc. once users are entrapped via network effects.
Edit: Sibling "enshittification" comment conveyed it better.
We are. Constantly. We are, intellectually, in a tiny minority who
find these things delightful and empowering. We assume that must also
be good for everyone else. I was building electronics as a five year
old when the other kids were playing outside and it thrilled me so
much I assumed everyone else thought the same. They didn't and they
don't. Maybe us nerds "took over the world", but as an adult I find
almost everybody else (those we call normies) feel that digital
technology is;
- something that happens to them
- is foisted upon them and they have no choice
- something they "have to trust"
> it gives people something they want
Have you considered that you really have no idea "what people want"?
Neither do I, but I do know that and feel comfortable saying it. And I
have done research and literally gone onto the streets interviewing
lots of people to ask them. Most want what they think their friends
want. Or the thing they already have with some new features. We tell
them and they buy.
> to be against that disruption you would have to believe that those
people have some sort of right to make that money and continue doing
the things...
In a funny way they kind of do have that right. UDHR includes several
aspects that can be taken as a "right to stability".
> it's the anti tech people
I don't encounter any "anti-tech people". Ever. I meet plenty folks
who are anti-surveillance, or anti-authoritarian, or anti-asshole -
against people forcing their technology on them - but I've never met
anyone who thinks it's simply the fault of technology itself. You may
be living in a bit of a bubble?
Software is pushing updates on us that nobody asked for in the exact moment we need them least, everything between the operating system to websites shove ads in our face, and features & "modern UI" that remove important information and options because designers thought a UI can't be confusing if it barely exists. Privacy violations pushed with countless license agreements and the daily "We value your privacy" popup that explains to you in what ways this sentence is a lie.
> it gives people something they want, not the other way around
I have never heard someone ask for slow and broken software, ads, tracking and other shady practices. They just have to live with it because what are they gonna do, not communicate with friends or file their taxes?
> "When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it."
Tech is like a fission reactor: powerful, elegant, delivering value through leverage, but requires strong controls and protections (moderators, containment) for humans so it doesn’t ruin us all.
People worry about AI paperclip maximizing, but Tech is already that in some ways (find or build moats, blitz scaling, no concerns for the harm incurred). It’s just fuzzy cohorts of tech workers and management doing the paperclip maximizing, for comp and shareholder value respectively. Not much different than AI reward functions.
Yeah, it's a misguided and naive way of thinking. Deciding whether a technological development is good (and for whom, and to what extent, and with what trade-offs, and on what time horizons) is a really difficult task. So some folks will replace it with a much easier question: "Is this new?"
Also, plastic is looking far worse now than twenty years ago though I think the net is quite complicated and therefore ambiguous at the moment.
There is an ongoing discussion about “forever chemicals” and, again, not unambiguous but the balance seems to be tilting toward them being a bad idea.
I’m not personally seeing much of a dividend from nuclear weapons given how difficult nuclear power turns out to be under capitalism in practice. But I suppose it gets a pass because otherwise my father might have died in a land war.
Remains to be seen what the net will be on oil but I’ll happy speculate that if you consider a sufficiently long timeline that one turns out bad too.
I’m still pretty mad about the “food pyramid” but I can’t offer any particular study that tries to quantify its role in the decline of american health outcomes. Certainly modern food processing techniques look like a slow moving disaster but it’s really hard to sort
our cause and effect.
Social media was neat for a few years but I would consider it a net negative.
CFCs, PFAS, BPA, phthalates, thalidomide, leaches, bloodletting, lobotomies, pretty much the entire history of mental health treatment, hydrogen airships, vermillion pigment, mercury felt stabilizer, radium water... If I were feeling particularly spicy I might even suggest things like weapons research, communism, or suburbia.
How bad actually are hydrogen airships? At this point trying to make tiltrotors any safer is not working out, so airships could be better. Though, if you have a real airport, passenger jets are unbeatably safe.
Fair point! Probably should have left them off. Despite the rather famous failing, they've had a lot of utility, and the technology is still in use today. (I think there's at least one YCombinator startup using hydrogen airships.)
Kinda the point, no? If history shows progress is disruptive, then accelerationism seems likely to accelerate disruptions. Many people can connect these dots, and not everyone sees this as positive.
